Dying to Write

by Judith Cutler

  Lunch, which we took late, of course, had been a leisurely affair, if that is not a misnomer. Hugh said his car would be ready by three thirty. I offered to run him into the city centre on my way back to Eyre House. I’d resolved to take George’s van back there. If I couldn’t do any burglary, I might do some spying. It was scarcely an unobtrusive vehicle, but it would provide shelter in a stakeout: that was the term my TV heroines Cagney and Lacey would use. I had a vision of myself huddled in the van drinking coffee – though I’d forgotten, of course, to provide myself with a flask – watching a villain lead me to Kate. It was quite a pleasant scenario. Unfortunately it led to my hopping across the lights at the Green Man when I could have just stopped, and I soon found a flashing blue light in my rear-view mirror.

  I pulled over immediately and got out of the van, looking suitably apologetic. I was prepared for a bollocking, and for a charge of careless driving if the fates were against me.

  It looked as if I would get away with it. Hugh corroborated my truthful denial of having had too much to drink, and so I was even spared the public humiliation of a breathalyser, which disappointed the people in the nearby bus shelter. And after a telling-off, which I accepted with very good grace, I was allowed to go on my way. So I drove at an exemplary thirty towards Five Ways, the police car twenty yards behind me. Surely I’d proved by now I was a good, law-abiding citizen? But then they flashed me again. I pulled over. I got out, at least as irritated as I was puzzled. I walked towards them, spreading my hands in innocence. They ignored me.

  But they pulled Hugh from his seat and thrust him hard against the side of the van, arms and legs spread-eagled.

  Both officers continued to ignore me.

  ‘May I ask what you’re doing?’ I demanded. My voice carries, remember – all those years of teaching and sounding confident when you’re sick with terror. ‘What’s going on?’

  For answer, one of the policemen dragged Hugh’s arms free of the van, twisted them up his back and handcuffed them. The other officer yelled the standard caution. They were arresting him! Then they dragged him to the patrol car and threw him face down on the back seat.

  ‘Officer,’ I shouted, ‘what are you doing? Leave him alone!’

  The machismo appeared to be over for a while. One of them took my arm quite gently and propelled me towards the car’s front passenger seat.

  ‘It’s all right now, Sophie.’

  ‘On the contrary, it plainly isn’t.’ How dared they use my name? Because I’d shot the lights, that’s why. And it was another form of power, that’s why. I shook my arm free, but, because he kept stepping towards me, was forced into the front passenger seat. ‘What are you doing to Mr Brierley? I’ve never seen such brutality.’

  ‘Now don’t you worry yourself, please. We’ll go off to Rose Road nick – PC Clarke here’ll drive your van if you give us your keys – and then we’ll have a word with our friend.’

  His voice was irritatingly soothing, as if he were genuinely concerned for my wellbeing. The only way I could react was with an extra spurt of anger. ‘What the blazes for?’

  The officer leaned back irritatingly in his seat and ticked off his fingers: ‘Abduction – that’s kidnapping –’

  ‘I know what abduction means. Who’s he supposed to have abducted?’

  ‘Hear me out, Sophie. Abduction. Murder. Resisting arrest. Don’t even think he had his seat belt on.’

  More power. Smug power. The men smiled impregnably. I felt like a fly hitting a window. A vast, impotent anger gathered. This fly must crack the window.

  I got out of the car and removed my shoe.

  ‘Come on, Sophie, what d’you think you’re doing now? You ought to be sitting down having a nice cup of tea. And we want the police surgeon to check you over.’

  ‘If you do not release Mr Brierley I shall smash your windscreen,’ I said. ‘That’ll take some explaining when you get it back to the pound.’ At least I had their attention now. ‘You think Mr Brierley is connected with the Eyre House business: yes? Why don’t you get on the phone to DCI Groom? Then we can clear up this mess now.’ The authority in my voice grew. ‘And don’t think I don’t know you, Constable Kevin Bennett. I remember you as a sweet little police cadet trying to abseil down from the fifteenth floor at William Murdock and nearly getting the sack for it. If I hadn’t begged them to give you a second – or was it a third or fourth – chance, you’d be one of the three million on the dole.’

  ‘And you –’ I wagged my shoe at Clarke before slipping it back on – ‘had better release Mr Brierley. Now! And if you apologise nicely he may limit himself to suing for wrongful arrest rather than assault.’

  ‘Can’t release him now, miss,’ said Bennett, a touch sheepishly, getting out of the car. ‘Once he’s been arrested, we have to go through the formalities. And to do that we have to take him to Rose Road. And ask you if you’d be kind enough to accompany us. As the complainant.’

  ‘I’m not complaining except about this. Damn it, you’ve got a crowd out here as big as if you were selling Cup Final tickets. I’m driving peaceably into town, and I get pulled over and my passenger assaulted.’

  ‘Please, miss –’

  ‘Get Chris Groom on the phone.’

  ‘Got to go through the radio system for that. Much easier if you’d agree. You could phone him from Rose Road.’

  ‘If I say no?’

  ‘He has to go anyway. And it’d be easier for him if you were there to confirm you didn’t want to press charges.’

  ‘Get the handcuffs off him then, and let him sit like a human being. Now.’

  I watched them release Hugh. He’d remained silent throughout, but from the way he shook his hands free I deduced it was because he was too angry to risk speech. The look he shot at me was hardly tender. Then he softened, and grinned.

  ‘Thank God I’m not one of your students,’ he said.

  ‘Oh, I’m nice to them. Aren’t I, Bennett?’

  Bennett looked delightfully embarrassed.

  ‘See you in a minute,’ I said. And got into George’s van and drove through the one-way system back to Rose Road Police Station.

  Tender as if I were an invalid, they ushered me through anonymous beige corridors and handed me over to a WPC. She smiled and steered me into a green-painted room, shutting the door. Wherever I might be, I wasn’t in a cell. There was a carpet, and bulgy easy chairs and a sofa.

  The WPC answered the question my eyes asked.

  ‘The rape suite!’ I exclaimed. ‘But I haven’t been raped!’

  ‘Just sit down for a minute, Sophie. I’ll make you a coffee – or would you prefer tea? – and then we can clarify everything.’

  I sat. There was no point in maintaining my blind fury. The sooner I convinced everyone that I was sane and sober, the sooner they’d release Hugh.

  The WPC nodded and touched my arm lightly. Then she disappeared behind a curtain, and I could hear her filling a kettle. I looked around me. More curtains the other side of the room. They weren’t drawn tightly enough to hide the sort of high bed I associate with gynaecological check-ups. And there was a supply of rubber gloves and a speculum, no doubt. There was a bathroom to my right.

  ‘Here you are!’ The WPC offered me extra sugar, which I waved away, but I took the mug.

  She smiled encouragingly. If I’d been raped, I’d be able to talk to her, maybe. I’d be able to pour it all out, knowing that whatever I said wouldn’t shock her out of her calm control. She’d be kind and supportive, wouldn’t she? So how would she take the simple truth?

  I peered at her shirt – in this clearly labelled world, I expected her to have a name badge. But the police have numbers, of course.

  ‘Helen,’ she said.

  Yes. I should have remembered. They’d introduced us as if we were to become friends. She’d be one of a small team supporting me as long as I needed them. At that point I’d been too angry to do more than nod.

  ‘Helen,’ I began, �
�there really has been a mistake, you know. And I do realise that your people were acting in what they believed were my best interests, but it is time to stop. Mr Brierley is a respectable man –’

  At this point I stopped. I knew nothing of the man, except that he wrote poetry and that I fancied him. He was no more than a party acquaintance, was he? But when you meet people you have to take them on trust, if you like them, that is.

  ‘If you contact Matt Purvis at Eyre House –’ I burrowed in my bag for my diary to tell her the phone number. She assumed I wanted a cigarette, and had her lighter ready. I flourished the diary. ‘Look, can’t you just phone? Or better still, phone DCI Groom. He’d surely have the authority to release him.’

  Helen shook her head.

  ‘Not even the chief constable could do that. Nor the home secretary. Once someone’s been formally arrested, there’s a set procedure we have to adhere to. I’m sorry, I really am. But there’s absolutely nothing we can do.’

  ‘So where is he now? What’s happening to him?’

  ‘I’ll check for you.’ Helen picked up the phone, but as she did so there was a tap on the door and another woman, part of the support team, came in. She was in sweatshirt and jeans, and wore a name label: Molly. Molly sat down beside me on the squashy sofa and leaned towards me. She looked so kind I could have screamed.

  ‘You really are quite sure you don’t want to make any sort of complaint against Mr Brierley?’ Helen asked before Molly could say anything.

  The women exchanged eye contact.

  ‘You’re quite sure he’s not threatened you – said that if you don’t deny it he’ll make things worse?’ asked Molly. ‘Because if he has, we can offer you protection as long as you need it. Up to the trial and beyond.’

  ‘Hugh Brierley has done nothing to harm me. Last night he helped guard me. I left a message with one of your colleagues at Eyre House that I was leaving. To be honest, bolting like that wasn’t the most sensible thing I’ve ever done. But I’d just had another threat. Nothing verbal, but someone had attached a shirt I’d been wearing to my chair with a corkscrew and I overreacted. I spent the morning at the college I work at and then I met Hugh. Quite by chance. He’d taken his car to Rydale’s for repair. You can check. We had coffee at the Mondiale, and cake – the most wonderful fattening banana cream cake you’ve ever tasted – and then we took a taxi back to my home so I could collect my asthma spray. Lunch at Valentino’s. The rest you know. Look, you could clear this up straight away.’

  Molly stood up. ‘You’re telling the truth? OK, I’ll go and talk to the custody officer. It won’t make things any quicker but it might make it easier.’

  I turned to Helen. ‘What’ll be happening to him?’

  She looked at her watch. ‘They should have finished the documentation procedure by now. And he’ll have been allowed his phone call. I should imagine he’ll have called a solicitor. If he doesn’t know any solicitors, then there’s a duty solicitor.’

  I laughed grimly. I should imagine that a man with Hugh’s assurance would have a solicitor tucked away somewhere. One who would have a wonderful time dealing with Hugh’s complaints against the police.

  ‘He’ll wait for his solicitor in a cell,’ Helen continued. ‘Then he’ll be taken to an interview room.’

  ‘Are the cells like those on TV? Plastic mattresses? The loo in full view of the door?’

  She nodded.

  ‘And it’ll take how long to set him free?’

  ‘Two hours.’

  ‘Bloody hell! And I was supposed to be seducing him this afternoon.’

  As it was, I spent the time reading back copies of Hello and contemplating a pair of sexually explicit dolls. This must be where they brought victims of child-abuse, too.

  We were eventually reunited in a little apricot-painted interview room just off the reception area. Neither of us said much, not with Helen there, but we managed a very asexual hug, and he ruffled my hair in what I hoped was a forgiving way. Then we shook hands most cordially with all involved, and beat it to my van.

  ‘Don’t say anything. Just get this bloody thing moving,’ he said, fastening his seat belt.

  I pulled into Rose Road and turned down the hill. When there was a gap in the cars parked at the kerb, I pulled into it. When I looked at him, his face was stony. He pulled away when I touched his hand.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I began.

  Whatever he’d been going to say, he’d changed his mind. And then he looked at me and smiled. ‘OK. Not your fault. And you certainly did your best to stop them arresting me. Never seen such a termagant. Talk about Attila the Hun late for a invasion. Come on now, Sophie. There’s work to be done ere the setting sun.’

  I grinned: The Black Country expression was one way of building a rather weakened bridge.

  ‘Work? After this afternoon?’

  ‘I promised Matt I’d stay on. He wanted help with some of the tutorial work. And I didn’t see any reason not to stay.’ His smile and brief handclasp suggested he had another reason to stay on at Eyre House.

  Then I plunged into the rush-hour traffic. All Birmingham’s bottlenecks lay before me and Eyre House. And I had to go via the city centre so I could deliver Hugh safely to Rydale’s. We didn’t talk much. When I glanced at him, he had his eyes closed. And then we were at Five Ways and into Broad Street and I had to decant him.

  ‘See you later,’ was all he said.

  George’s van had neither a radio nor a cassette player. I had nothing for company but my own thoughts and reflections, none of which was especially pleasant. And I had them for nearly an hour.

  Six ten. Eyre House at last. I flung the van viciously into a parking space and yanked on the handbrake before it was truly stationary, so the whole vehicle shuddered and jerked. I slammed the door with far more force than I needed. Chris would be expecting me to report immediately to the incident room. He would be disappointed. First I was going to have a shower and wash my hair. I might even see if Courtney would blow-dry it for me. I strode into reception. The doors gasped at my passing. A WPC tried to intercept me, but failed.

  I was halfway down the student corridor before I noticed the far end was taped off. Two PCs were now on duty. There was no chair.

  ‘Got too busy for one, did it?’ I asked, in the tone of voice I use to students who forget to hand in homework.

  The younger one opened his mouth to speak. The older one merely nodded downwards. I followed his eyes. On the thick, soundproofing carpet, was a chalked outline of a sprawling figure. Near the head was an ugly stain.

  And then I noticed another chalk outline. Rectangular. About three feet by two.

  ‘Where’s Sidney?’ I asked.

  ‘DCI Groom wants to see you, miss,’ said the older man.

  ‘I asked you what happened to the rat.’

  ‘I’m sure the DCI will tell you, miss.’ He nodded at his colleague, who reached for his radio.

  ‘I’m sure he’s just dying to. Tell him I’ll be along in a few minutes.’

  ‘But miss –’

  I let myself into my room. Nothing seemed to have changed except that the smell was less fierce. I grabbed my dressing gown and sponge bag. Chris might even hear me singing in the shower.

  The water was hot and plentiful. I washed my hair, too. But I didn’t sing. I found my face running not with shampoo or conditioner, but with tears. I rebuked myself sharply. Surely, surely I couldn’t be weeping because of a rat?

  When I emerged from the bathroom, carrying my clothes, my hair still wrapped in a towel, the two PCs shuffled with embarrassment. But it was not the sight of me in my dressing gown that caused their unease. I was sure of it. So I was half prepared. Chris Groom was waiting for me in my room. He was sitting on my bed.

  I didn’t speak. I merely held the door open for him in a furious parody of a courteous invitation.

  He didn’t move.

  Neither did I.

  We maintained our hostile eye contact. Whicheve
r of us gave way would lose the battle. And after this afternoon I did not intend it to be me.

  The same thought had occurred to Chris, of course. But I had the advantage that he was clearly in the wrong. I’d obeyed the police despite everything. I was in no way to blame. Perhaps – though I would never admit it – my flight had been foolish, but I had taken the trouble to tell his representative what I was doing. And the treatment to which Hugh had been subjected was deplorable. Unless, of course, he had indeed been trying to kidnap me.

  Meanwhile, Chris sat staring at me. And I stood holding open the door.

  The longer the silence lasted, the more difficult it would be to break it. But I would not back down. In fact, I would up the stakes slightly, as I would in a confrontation at work. I raised my eyebrows ironically, and made a minute gesture with my head: out.

  I thought he was going to hit me, he got to his feet so fast. He jabbed his index finger at me.

  I touched my finger to my lips, then jerked a thumb in the direction of the PCs. Did he really want an audience? I asked silently.

  ‘Certainly, Chief Inspector Groom,’ I said, in my classroom voice. ‘I’ll be along to the stables in about fifteen minutes.’

  I had won. But as I closed the door behind him, I found myself crying in good earnest. I managed to get dressed: the skirt Hugh had requested, and a coordinating polo-neck. But then I had to dry my hair, and all I saw in the mirror was this unhappy face, blotched and puffy.

  I did the only thing possible: knelt by the bed and let the tears come. Only when I had cried myself out did they stop.

  I was now sitting on the floor, my back supported by the bed. Any moment now I’d be able to gather myself up, finish drying my hair, and try to match Nyree’s expertise with make-up. Any moment. But not yet.

  And then I thought of Hugh and the ordeal simply being with me had inflicted on him. Enough of self-pity. I pushed myself to my feet, dabbed my eyelids with toner, and finished my hair. Then I started on my make-up.